News & Information for Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts

Main menu

Search form

You are here

My first sourdough loaf. 07-05-2013. Beginners success.

October 17, 2013 - 7:14am

Maureen Farndell

My first sourdough loaf. 07-05-2013. Beginners success.

Ah yes! First ever blog also!!!!!

I started my adventure sometime in March/April this year with a wish to re-produce a bread like the rustic artisan loaf made by a bakery in a nearby town called Knysna. Trouble was, it's a 45 minute drive......... for a loaf of bread? I don't think so -.

After a while researching and surfing the www, I found "The Fresh Loaf" and one of the members, very kindly, helped me get going with my starter (see: sourdoughlady - wild yeast starter.) Still being very confused by all my new found knowledge, I messed around and played with this for a while. No haste, but I did develop a good, strong, starter from the very beginning. I think I was a little intimidated by all the strange terminology and in total awe of the wonderful bread everyone seemed to produce.......

So now I had a starter, happy and bubbly - I just had to do something with it! I downloaded a couple of ebooks from Amazon and eventually settled on Peter Reinhart's "Artisan Bread Every Day". His common sense approach and easy to follow instruction was all I needed. My first loaf was great and my third ended in the trash (but thats the only one) so there have been more successful loaves than not.

Six months down the line and my recipe has almost no resemblance to the original, progressing from ordinary baking sheet to pizza stone to cast iron pot, but still a real pleasure to eat. My favourite is olive and rosemary but my husband likes the very cheesy, so there is plenty to choose from and I bake at least twice a week!

If I could figure out how to upload more than one photo to a blog I would. Perhaps someone could tell me how!

Thank you Fresh Loaf and all your wonderful contributors........ I'm so very glad to be part of the community.

Your loaf looks wonderful! I too am on a bread journey . That sourdough has such a nice shape and pattern. Look at the button with the tree and add photos using that button. I add them later in comments. I am sure there are better ways to add photos but this way we could see the cheese!

What a lovely loaf! You have obviously been learning and practicing a lot.

Was it the Ile de Pain bakery in Knysna that inspired you? They do make some fabulous breads and are quite proud of them, too, if I recall correctly. I was only there once but was quite impressed with their work. They use Eureka Mills flour, I think.

Hi Paul, Yep you got that right....... Ile de Pain it was. I live in George. I only use Eureka flour (well it is milled in Swellendam so always nice and fresh) and my friend assures me that my bread is just as good tasting as theirs..... Hmmm. Whatever..... I'm happy. All my bread is baked in a pot at the moment (sort of Dutch Oven). Started off with my husbands potjie but soon moved on to a very larny Le Creuset 26cm casserole pot. I bake up a storm and sometimes there are 3 different loaves to choose from. Such fun!!!!!!!! M.

Peter Reinhart is one of my favorite authors and Whole Grain Breads is my standard from which I learned a lot of what I know. He sure made the process easy for me to go from using IY to SD and his Master formula is a snap to convert into almost any loaf. I also like that his loaf is very home baker friendly especially when struggling with terminology.

Hope to see more of your bakes in the future.

To add more photos you simply repeat the process you went through to post the photo you do have in your blog. I am NO computer expert at all - in fact, I am one who prefers not to use a computer but times have thrust me into it so I learn - albeit slowly and I do know how to do the photos with my computer. (I have an apple laptop)

Hi Janet, I still cant figure out how to load more photos into the content of the blog! I have an iMac and all photos are in iPhoto but thats not the problem. It wants a URL?????????? Do I have such a thing????? I don't usually struggle with computers but this has go me stumped......

To transfer photos I want from iPhoto here in my photo file I begin by transferring them onto my 'desktop' by highlighting them on my iPhoto screen and then exporting them onto my desktop.

Once on my desktop I come here and click on the small tree icon on the top of the comment box.

I then get a pop up where is says URL and at the end of that long skinny box there is a smaller square box with squiggles in it.

I then click on the small squiggle box which gives me a bigger box that shows me what I have on 'file' in my TLF account.

I click on 'upload' and follow the prompts. Which means I choose one of the shots off of my desktop and download it into my files here. I then go back to the small square box with squiggles and upload the next the shot I want to store here. I continue in this fashion until all the shots are stored here then I begin to 'insert' them onto the screen where others may see them.

All have to be transferred one at a time.

I label them so I know what shot I am storing for future use. (This step has to be done where you are choosing size of photo etc. There is a choice at the end in that box and I click on 'sequential' and then print the name in the long skinny box beneath that list. (This is on my computer not the site here so is done when I am transferring from desktop to TFL.)

Hope this helps and doesn't add to your confusion. I am terrible at this. My son had to help me and I had to take extensive notes and practice several times before I really got it. I am not very good at explaining in words though - much better if I could sit down next to you and simply show you.

Thanks Janet. If anyone else talked about skinny boxes and little boxes with squiggles they would think we are totally nuts!!!!! I know exactly what you mean! It's all perfectly clear! The other thing I found out is that my images are to big being high def so I'll have to edit a bit to get them down to a smaller size and then export to desktop which is what I should have done in the first place....... Live and learn! I'm not bad with technology at all but this I did not know. Hubby loves to Google so he researches a lot of stuff for me!!!!!!! (Big Smiley Face)

down the line, I hope your breads now are as successful as the first one that really looks delicious. Can't wait to see the crumb shot. I have a good idea for you. Make a cheese bread with rosemary, so you and your hubby will both have the favorites. I always make something for both of us so everybody will be happy with the bread.

All original site content copyright 2017 The Fresh Loaf unless stated otherwise. Content posted by community members is their own. The Fresh Loaf is not responsible for community member content. If you see anything inappropriate on the site or have any questions, contact me at floydm at thefreshloaf dot com. This site is powered by Drupal and Mollom.